Big Girl Panties!

Let's start at the beginning. My first "day" was a little ruff to say the least, but I kept my big girl panties on and dealt with it very well I must say! (I was CY all the way!!) Considering Day 1 was actually 3 days.... I arrived at the airport only to find my first flight canceled. I had been re-booked for two hours earlier without being informed and had therefore missed my flight to Chicago. So no Seoul, Korea for me. I was re-routed to Washington DC, where again, I was re-routed for the third time since my flight to Beijing was delayed by 6 hours, causing me to eventually miss my connection to the Philippines. So, no Beijing for me. Onto Chicago, Vancouver and then Manila, Philippines overnight. On the runway in DC we sat watching movies for 2 hours while thunder and lightening struck down around us. In Chicago we didn't have a flight crew, so we were delayed 1 1/2 hours... are you seeing a theme here yet. I started to feel like the travel Gods were playing a nasty trick on me and really, all I wanted was to land in Manila and see the men in uniform that were there to pick me up!! (which they were NOT...unitl 2 hours and an emergent "where are you" phone call later.) The flight from Vancouver to Manila was actually not that bad. 13 hours long, but I got lucky to have an aisle exit row. I popped a couple of benadryl, a glass of wine, put on my dream sleeper mask and caught some Philippine Phlies!! When I landed I found out that although I didn't go via Beijing, my bag did! And it didn't continue on...So it became a Navy mission for my bag recovery efforts since if it didn't arrive by the next night (Monday) we were going out to sea Tuesday morning at 8am without it. With limited phone and internet use it was nearly impossile to verify that the flight was even going to come in from Beijing to Manila Monday night (it was also 5 hours delayed!) The navy secured a driver and van, provided an escort, I took a couple of my new friends and low and behold, the Travel Gods provided my beautiful, fully stocked duffle bag!!
I am living in Commander Officer's Quarters with 6 other women, all of which are very nice, flexible and fun (which was not the case initially!) We were in enlisted quarters at first, which is hundreds of women on triple bunks in one giant galley. I have a locker, 4 drawers and we share common showers and toilets. Everyone gets up at 4am to 6:30am. I have been up at about 5:30 for the most part, going to breakfast and staring my days out with a walk on the deck. So far I think I have eaten 8 naval meals, one of which was filet and lobster tail, NO JOKE!! The food is really good - but I don't think I will be gaining a lot of weight... from the CO quarter (where I sleep) to the mess hall (where I eat) there are 5 flights of stairs. There are 7 flights total...6 different zones...A LOT OF STAIRMASTER HERE!! (JT- losing the 3 mo. prego from all the stairs and get to pig out on all the good food 3 times a day!!) Very easy to get lost and I have to keep my map with me all the time. We won't know our actuall "jobs" until we dock 1.5 mile from shore in Vietnam in the am...but for right now I am going to be working in the ICU and doing some education pieces... A LOT of political red tape to work through and "going to shore" is a lot more difficult than we anticipated...must go eat again! Will try to write again later...the internet is VERY slow at sea. Love to you all, Jess